But when the game was scoreless, left-back Monreal booted the ball back to Cech without realising his keeper had moved away from the goal.

And the veteran stopper had to scramble backwards quickly to stop the ball drifting into an empty net, giving away an indirect free-kick from six yards out in the process because he handled the ball.

Arsenal player ratings v Sunderland

ARSENAL beat Sunderland in the Premier League tonight - here are our player ratings after the match.

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Arsenal player ratings v Sunderland

“Well it’s a mis-kick because obviously he wanted to pass it a completely different way,”

Petr Cech

"Well it’s a mis-kick because obviously he wanted to pass it a completely different way," said Cech after the game.

"I was not sure whether it goes in or wide [if I didn’t touch it] because you don’t want to take any chances so I touched it and helped it a little bit wide, which I thought was going to be a corner because I didn’t catch the ball and I didn’t win a backpass.

"I don’t know, a lot of things can happen! I thought it was mis-kick and it would’ve been a corner, in the end the referee decided for a backpass which he has the right to do.

"The situation became a bit confusing because it is very hard, you have it on the goal-line so where do you put the players.

"I know the rule in this way says you need to be 10 yards or on the goal-line and everybody was everywhere so I think it was kind of a strange situation and I have to say we dealt with it well and that is the main important thing."